I wrote this message before thinking about embedding the
image... I was thinking that putting a relative path automatically
embedded the image, but in retrospect I was wrong, and that will
probably solve my problem. I'll just leave the question here anyway
though:

I'm using image components in my application loaded from a
relative path. The problem is, I have many copies (30+) of the same
image, essentially 30+ identical image components which need to be
loaded/unloaded at different intervals, and they are not loading
fast enough for me. Would it be more effective to duplicate an
existing "master" Image to improve load time instead of explicitly
setting "image.source=" each time? Is there any better solution for
improving image load speed?

Best of all would be some way to pre-cache or buffer images,
so that I can be guaranteed that they will load as quickly as
possible when I bind them to an Image component.